As infant stars get closer to becoming full-fledged suns, they pulse faster, according to research in the July 4 Science. The discovery provides astronomers with a new tool for probing stellar nurseries and learning more about how stars form.

The team matched the frequency at which young stars vibrate to attributes like temperature and brightness. In one young star cluster, NGC 2264, the researchers realized that stars have been forming for much longer than its assumed few-million-year age.